Adventures of John: The Final Adventures Time of Magic
by John The Adventurer
Summary: I have returned from my long absence to tell you the tale of my Final Adventures. While I wandered in the strange land of Oregon, I had an unexpected reunion with an old friend, and once more I was off on a mad adventure. Faced against a mysterious and powerful entity and trapped on a strange and impossible world, it was exactly what I expected from a reunion with the Doctor.
1. Introduction

Adventures of John: The Final Adventures

Time of Magic

Introduction

My name is John the Adventurer, and I am this world's greatest protector. I am every world's greatest protector. Or at least I was. You see, our world, our reality, is not the only one there is. There are an infinite number of planes of existence beyond our own, realms of myth and magic filled with all manner of beasts and creatures, parallel earths, alternate universes with divergent histories and drastically different versions of the people you know. The universe is much bigger than you know. There is an entire multiverse of limitless possibilities, while most people just live their lives, completely unaware of the numberless worlds beyond their reach. But that isn't me.

My eyes see what mortal eyes cannot, and my feet have trodden on ground none else have. I have traveled to realms beyond imagining, battled demons and gods, and halted the destruction of entire universes. In my youthful hubris, I nearly caused the destruction of the universe myself on a few occasions. What had started as simply a collection of exciting adventures through the magical realms became a heavy responsibility, as it seemed that I alone held the responsibility to save the world from those that would see it crumble. I found love. I became a hero, a legend. John the Adventurer, King of Arendelle, Terror of the Dark Realms, Avatar of Balance, the Godslayer, and numerous other titles. I wrote down my tales and posted them on this site, knowing that few would believe them, but finding joy in sharing my adventures. But now, that is in the past. I am not the man I once was. I have lost so much, and my long watch is finally over. After two years of absence, I have returned to write a few last stories, to tell you the tale of my Final Adventures.

. . . . .

A little over two years ago, I left home, in more ways than one. I left my regular home in Las Vegas and began traveling, taking a journey through our world that helped me understand myself and my place in this world. I left behind my laptop and iPhone, disconnecting myself from the interwebs to connect with myself. I traveled a lot, living in seven different apartments, staying at some for only two weeks, while a couple I stayed for a little over seven months. My journeyings took me through Utah and up into Oregon, which is where I spent most of that time. It's a strange place, Oregon. Near-constant rainclouds cover the sky for nine months of the year, and I swear that there is some sort of strange magic in the air there that makes people… weird. But the weird atmosphere of Oregon isn't the only magic I have had experiences with in the last two years.

While I was on my soul-searching travels, I utilizes the power of the Voidstone, an object created from the strange and power anti-energies of the Void, the space between universes, to continue to explore worlds beyond our won. I went in search of answers. There was something wrong with the multiverse, but I didn't know what. There weren't any obvios signs, but I could sense it. From the Voidstone to the crawling under my skin, to the strange and terrifying dreams that disrupted my otherwise rock-like sleep. In the day I walked about, talked to people I met on the street, at parks, and in churches. I came to know them, and I tried to help people however I could, whether that meant helping them build their greenhouse or giving them words of reassurance, hope, and faith. At night, I traveled the multiverse, seeking answers hen I barely knew the question.

But of course, my soul/multiverse searching didn't happen without some interruptions along the way. My strange life has never been very good at giving me rest periods. The first of these interruptions was one I didn't mind though. In a time when everything was strange and unfamiliar, it was good to see a familiar face… in a manner of speaking. You see, while I had only recently arrived in Oregon, I got a visit from an old friend…

Author's Note: Hello friends! While things have not been easy for me of late, it is good to be back. It is good to be able to share my tales with you again, and while I do not regret my decision to leave the internet and such for a time, I do enjoy having technology again. A lot has happened in these past two years, both good and bad, and I hope to be able to share it all with you before I finish my time here. Yep, the title is not a misnomer, I am fairly certain that these next few stories are, in deed, my last. I am not done writing of course, I don't think I could ever stop that, but this particular series will soon come to its end. My adventures are, at least as far as I am are, over. I might be wrong of course, I have been wrong before, but I have a very good reason to believe that I am done. I would tell you why, but as River Song would say, "Spoilers!" So, I hope that I do these events justice, and I hope that you will all continue with me as I finish these, the Final Adventures.

Also, for those who have not read my previous stories, you should really give those a look. I know there are a lot of them, but this doesn't make much sense without reading at least a few of those first. Oh, and also, I am going to be uploading new chapters a little less frequently than I would like, as the mundane world has become very busy for me since returning from my absence, but I **will** be uploading new chapters on a regular basis. Just most likely not every week, or every day like I did at one point.


	2. Chapter 1: The Doctor Returns

Adventures of John: The Final Adventures

Time of Magic

Chapter 1: The Doctor Returns

"Clara!" The Doctor exclaimed as sparks flew around him, the floor shifting beneath his feet. His frizzy hair was a mess, his long navy and red coat fluttering about him as he struggled to make his way towards the center of the TARDIS. "What did you do to my ship?!"

"I haven't done anything to your ship!" she shouted back, exasperated. The TARDIS lurched and she grabbed ahold of a nearby railing, her chocolate locks flying across her face as she barely kept from being knocked over the side onto the floor. "And stop looking at me like that with those angry eyebrows! This was your idea!"

"Well, it was a terrible idea," the Doctor muttered as he reached the TARDIS console and began fiddling with switches. "You really should have dissuaded me from it." He pulled a lever and the TARDIS spiraled further out of control, rocking and sparking, groaning in protest as it was forced to do the impossible. But that had never stopped the Doctor before and it wasn't going to now. Despite his murmuring, the old Timelord continued to push the TARDIS beyond her limits, tearing through the fabric of the universe and launching them out into the Void, flying towards a distant corner of the multiverse.

. . . . .

It was late at night, and I was sound asleep within the apartment I shared at the time with my roommate Shirley (He is a guy, don't make fun of his name). Something happened to wake me up, and I looked about groggily to discover what had awoken me. It took a few moments for me to wake up enough for it to fully register, but when it did I shot up in my bed, eyes wide. There was no mistaking **that** sound for anything else. That wheezing, groaning noise was as familiar to me as the sound of my own voice. Hearing it then, I almost leapt out of my pajamas. Could it be? Was the universe playing some sort of cruel joke on me, or could it possibly be the impossible thing that I thought it was? Could it be, after all this time?

I could no more resist that sound than could a young child resist the sight of a plate of fresh-baked cookies. Immediately I jumped out of bed and ran to the window, opening up the blinds to see what waited outside. There it was, a big blue box sitting directly outside the apartment, the words "Police Box" emblazoned across the top. The door was open just a crack, the light spilling out promising an all-too familiar world of wonder and adventure. I could hardly believe it was real. After all this time, the Doctor had come back for me.

I raced out of the apartment, pausing only to grab a few essential items. I glanced at my roommate, who was normally a much lighter sleeper than I was, but by some miracle he was still sound asleep. I didn't care too much about the possibility of waking him up though. The Doctor was here, and I was not going to waste a single instant. I burst out the back doors and ran outside, pausing for a moment to stare at that strange, wonderful box before pushing the doors open, revealing the expansive interior. No matter how many times I see it, it never ceases to amaze me that it truly is bigger on the inside.

"John!" the Doctor exclaimed, his eyes wide as he pointed at me. "Just the man I wanted to see!" I was taken aback slightly when I saw him, as he was not the man I was expecting. I should have realized that it wouldn't be the bowtie-wearing Doctor I knew and loved, as it had been a while since we had seen each other last, and he had been on his way to Trenzalore. However, it was still a shock when I came face-to-face with the much older Doctor. As I recovered from the shock of seeing him he seemed to realize something as well, his impressive eyebrows furrowing together something fierce as he squinted at me. He strode forward until he was only an inch away, forcing the shorter man to look up at me. "What happened to you?" he finally asked, his Scottish accent thickening the words, his hands waving about as he spoke. "You're a giant!"

"Not really, I replied with a chuckle. "You're just short. I don't see what that is such a surprise though, as I haven't grown all that much since I last saw you, and your last regeneration wasn't exactly Michael Jordan either."

Clara snorted, covering her mouth with her hand as the Doctor turned to glare at her. "What?" she asked defensively. "He's not wrong."

"You're one to talk, I joked, grinning widely.

"Oi, come here you!" she ordered, unable to restrain a grin of her own.

I pushed past the Doctor and gave Clara a big hug, lifting her off the floor. I then turned and gave the Doctor a similar hug, which he did not seem to appreciate. "I'm not really the hugging type," he told me.

"Too bad," I told him, hugging him a bit tighter to prove my point. "I have missed you guys so much!" I exclaimed when I set him back down.

"We missed you too," Clara replied, "though shortie over there probably won't admit it."

"Alright then!" the Doctor declared, spinning way and clapping his hands together. "If the two of you are done hugging and insulting my height, we have work to do!"

He was definitely the Doctor, but I could tell that traveling with him would be different than it had been before. The Doctor I knew and had grown to love, **my** Doctor, was young, energetic, fun-loving, flamboyant, spontaneous, and almost certainly insane. This new Doctor was old, grumpy, and rather cross, but I could see hints of the same flamboyance and spontaneity, and he was most certainly insane. After all, he would have to be completely insane to attempt the journey from his universe to ours. Journeys of that variety are supposed to be impossible, even for the TARDIS. Of course, impossible is a word that has never really been a part of the Doctor's vocabulary. If something needs to be done, he finds a way.

"So, what are we doing?" I questioned. "Stopping Armageddon? Saving an ancient civilization? Combating an alien invasion?"

Clara and the Doctor glanced at each other, smiling secretively. The Doctor reached into the TARDIS console and pulled out a faintly glowing fist-sized blue sphere. "What does this look like to you?" he asked. I could sense energy emanating from it, but it couldn't be what it felt like. That wasn't possible. Even with the Doctor.

"Um… I don't know," I answered, quickly growing more suspicious. "Some kind of technological device?"

"The Doctor's grin stretched wider. "Here, catch." He tossed the sphere in my direction and I reached out to grab it-

-and suddenly I was enveloped in an explosion of light, illuminating the interior of the TARDIS in an instant. As soon as it had touched my fingertips, I had felt a surge of energy, and the dull blue glow blossomed into a brilliant golden luminance, light and power blazing across the room. "Magic," I whispered, feeling like I held the sun between my fingertips. "This is pure, condensed magical energy. How in all the worlds did you get this?!"

This was unlike anything I had ever before seen. The only thing comparable to it that I knew of was the Manaheart, and that was the center of all magic for an entire world. The amount of condensed magic in this single fist-sized sphere was enough to allow me to have nearly full use of my powers for a lifetime. This was beyond impossible, and yet there it was.

The Doctor's grin was wide, his eyes alight with excitement. "Want to see where it came from?"

I stared at him, and it took me a moment to realize that he was being serious. "What kind of question is that?" I asked him. "Of course I do!"

"Alrighty then!" the Doctor exclaimed, clapping once and rubbing his hands together furiously. "Let's get started then, shall we?" He slapped me on the back and raced back to the TARDIS console, beginning to mess around with a complicated series of buttons, levers, and switches.

"How did you guys even get here?" I asked, glancing around at the TARDIS's new interior. "I know better than almost anyone just how impossible this is."

"Well, its really quite complicated," the Doctor began, "but to dumb it down for you, I can always use that ridiculous explanation you love using so much: Magic."

"Oi!" Clara exclaimed, elbowing him in the ribs. "You be polite!" She leaned in closer to me then, speaking in a conspiratorial whisper. "It wasn't really all that complicated. He's just being grumpy. All he really did was stick the magic orb thingy in there and use it to find you."

"Speaking of which," the Doctor interjected, "I'm going to need that back." His eyebrows glared at us both, the Doctor rubbing his side where Clara had elbowed him. "Otherwise we are going to have a bit of difficulty getting back."

"Not that the journey here was particularly smooth," Clara muttered.

"Oh, will you just cut it out!?"

Watching the two of them together, I couldn't help but laugh. "You two are like an old married couple," I remarked, shaking my head.

"We are not!" they exclaimed in unison, both of them glaring at me now, proving my point.

"Whatever you say," I assented with a chuckle. "But anyways, I think I can help you with that. You may be a wizard with technology Doctor, but you don't know the first thing about magic. You need a real wizard for that. Luckily for you, I just so happen to be the resident expert on all things magical." I breathed in deeply and concentrated, absorbing the energy from the orb into myself. It was an impossibly amazing feeling, taking in all that power. It felt like lightning was surging through my body. Once I was ready, I grabbed hold of the TARDIS console, pouring magical energy into it and sending my thoughts out to the sentient machine. _Take us where we need to go._ With that the engines fired and we vanished, launching out into the Void.

. . . . .

"Where are we?" I asked when the TARDIS was still once more.

"In a pocket dimension," the Doctor answered excitedly, walking towards the doors of the TARDIS, "just outside the normal flow of time. I found it while searching for Gallifrey. There are certain possible disturbances that could indicate the location of Gallifrey, due to how I saved it. However, when I followed those disturbances, instead of leading me to Gallifrey, it led me here." The Doctor snapped his fingers and the doors of the TARDIS opened, revealing an impossible sight.

Far below us was an immense blue sphere, about the size of the earth. Blue energy swirled around it, eddying in and out of the massive object. I could feel it's power all the way from the TARDIS, hitting me like a bulldozer again and again with wave after wave of energy. This kind of power made gods look like termites. Faced with so much power, I felt like an ant, to be crushed underfoot. This should have been impossible, but then again, I had been using that word to describe a lot of things that had happened in the past few minutes. Apparently this was a day for the impossible.

"Is that..?" I couldn't finish the question. The possibility was just too shocking, the answer all too apparent.

The Doctor grinned. "A magic planet? Oh yes."

"But how?"

"Well, that's an interesting question. When the Timelords ordered the universe, well, this universe anyways," the Doctor explained, "they ensured that the universe would be ordered by science. They took pains to eliminate all the magic remaining from the universe before. I used to believe that just meant that they had eliminated illogical anomalies and determined precise rules to eliminate the illogical 'magical' way of thinking. However, you have shown me that magic is more than just superstition, in some ways. There is an actual energy, a force of magic, that for some reason is absent from my universe. For the Timelords to have eliminated all the magic in the universe, it had to go somewhere. Well, here it is!" He waved his arms outward then, indicating the planet below us.

The magic of an entire universe, condensed into a single mass. An entire planet comprised entirely of magic. The implications were mind-boggling. It was unfathomable, yet at this point I really shouldn't have been surprised. Whenever I get myself involved with things, especially when someone like the Doctor is also involved, insanity always ensues. This wasn't the first unimaginable thing I had seen, and I doubted that it would be the last. "Pretty neat, huh?" Clara chimed in. "So, are we gonna go down and check it out or what?"

The Doctor wrung his hands together, obviously wanting to do as Clara suggested, but something was holding him back. "Well, actually, I was hoping John could give us a little more information before we actually went down there. The magic is muddling with the TARDIS's sensors. The planet might not even have an atmosphere for all we know. All this magic makes things unpredictable. It doesn't make sense. This is John's realm of expertise, not mine."

Clara and I looked at each other, both of us surprised. "I can't tell you much from here. I can feel the planet's power with every cell in my body, but without getting closer I can't sense much more than that."

"And since when have you ever shied away from the possibility of danger?"

"I'm getting the feeling the Doctor is just like the rest of us in a way," I told her, a slight smile tugging at the corners of my mouth as I stared at the Doctor, trying to get a good read on his emotions. "He fears what he doesn't understand. The thing is, he isn't used to not understanding things. He is used to being the smartest man in the room, the only one who **does** know what is going on. But you don't know much about magic, do you Doctor? It doesn't work by your rules, so you are afraid of it." For a moment there was silence, and nobody spoke.

"Why wouldn't I be?" he finally replied. "It doesn't make any sense. The Timelords got rid of it for a reason. It's wild and chaotic, and it breaks everything."

"It may not work by the rules you know, but that doesn't mean magic has no rules," I explained. "I know you are used to being in charge and leading the way Doctor, but this time, you are in my realm. You are going to have to let someone else take the reins this time, let someone else be the one who has the answers. Are you willing to do that?" I looked him in the eyes, asking for my benefit as much as his. "Do you trust me?"

He was silent for a moment, his eyes thoughtful, eyebrows still angry. "I trust you John. Just make sure we don't all get turned into frogs or something."

I laughed, slapping him on the shoulder. "You've got it Doctor. Now, take us down. I want to see this magic planet."


	3. Chapter 2: A World of Magic

Adventures of John: The Final Adventures

Time of Magic

Chapter 2: A World of Magic

Stepping foot on the planet was a surreal experience. I could feel the magic in the air I breathed, coming up from the earth beneath, infusing every atom of everything around me. I have been many places. I have traveled to alternate universes and been in realms of myth and magic most believe to only be stories, to distant nether realms where there was no matter, and mystical energy was the natural state of existence. But this trumped all of that. Never before had I ever felt such raw power, such wild mystical energy.

And yet, to the natural eye, everything looked… well, normal. Well, not normal per se, it didn't look like our planet earth, that is sure. Thick strands of sapphire energy swirled through the air, a mystical cloud cover that illuminated instead of shadowed. The trees were unlike any on our world, twisting around one another, the same energy glowing faintly beneath their bark, and crystal formations grew out of the ground randomly, massive spikes of azure crystal jutting from the earth. But the world was missing that **_spark_**. As appearances went, it definitely looked alien, but not very magical. Down was still down, up was still up, the ground wasn't trying to eat me, and I was honestly more surprised that the trees **didn't** talk than I would have been if they had. I could feel the power here, but the side effects that should have been occurring from such a massive amount of magical power; sentient landscapes, native spirits, disruptions of the laws of physics, none of them were there. It was too normal.

"It's beautiful!" Clara gasped as she walked out of the TARDIS, her eyes wide. I couldn't help but smile as I saw the swirling lights reflected in her eyes. While it has been used far too often for dark purposes, magic is a beautiful thing. Magic is wonder and dreams, hope and memories, the impossible given life, and there are few things that make me happier than to see the joy of magic in someone's eyes. It is a very rare sight to see, especially in the eyes of those that have left the innocence of childhood behind.

"It is beautiful, isn't it?" I replied, the smile losing its life as I remembered the uneasy feeling in my stomach. I didn't want to ruin this for her, make it "lose its magic", but this place wasn't working right, and I didn't like it.

"This isn't so bad," the Doctor commented, bouncing in place for a couple of seconds. "Gravity seems to be working fine. All the laws of physics seem to be intact. I was worried I was going to have to deal with talking clouds and random distortions of gravity and spacetime, but everything looks to be in order."

 _That's what I'm worried about._ But I kept my concerns to myself, at least until I had something more than just my gut to go by. "Yep. For a world made entirely out of magic, this place is pretty well structured. Your buddies the Time Lords must have known what they were doing when they made this place."

"Well," he sighed, "I suppose they didn't get **everything** wrong."

"Why don't you look around a bit?" I asked them. Whatever suspicious I had, it seemed things were safe, for the moment at least. "I'm going to go back in the TARDIS for a minute and see if the sensors work better now that we are down here. Then we can see what else this planet has to offer."

"I don't think you-" The Doctor's objection was cut short as his mouth closed seemingly on its own. I couldn't help but grin at the shock in his face. After all this time of knowing each other, he still hadn't gotten used to me using magic around him, or occasionally on him.

"It's alright Doctor, I won't hurt her. I may not be a Time Lord, but you don't have to be a genius to know how to read the TARDIS monitors. You enjoy yourself." I strode back into the little blue box, hoping that she could tell me something about what was going on here. It was a bit of a stretch, as magic wasn't anymore her domain than it was the Doctor's, but it was the best I had at the time. As I fiddled with the controls, I felt the ground shift beneath me. "I've got a bad feeling about this," I muttered, just before the ground dropped out from under me.

. . . . .

The Doctor and Clara were outside looking around at the wondrous surroundings, when suddenly the ground began to rumble. The Doctor's eyes widened, and he spun around on his heels, just in time to watch as the TARDIS was swallowed by the earth. "My ship!" he exclaimed, racing towards the spot the TARDIS had been only moments before. By the time he reached it however, the ground was smooth and undisturbed, as if the big blue box had never been there in the first place.

"Doctor?" Clara asked, just as shocked as he was. "What just happened?"

"I'm afraid our friend just got swallowed by a planet," the Doctor answered, his impressive eyebrows furrowed dangerously. "We are on a world where anything can happen, with our expert in the field missing and our only way off the planet trapped beneath the surface. We are in big trouble."


	4. Chapter 3: Trapped

Adventures of John: The Final Adventures

Time of Magic

Chapter 3: Trapped

It took me a moment to remember where I was. Everything was dark, and everything hurt. A lot. My back in particular had decided to give up on me, the fall, or I suppose, more accurately, the crash, having set off my spinal problems. One of the unfortunate side effects of being tall is that your bones can sometimes have problems with that, and in my case that came in the form of constant back pain for the past several years. It was rarely a problem, usually something easily ignored, to the point I sometimes forgot that it was there, but I must have hit my back, and the result was all kinds of painful.

Where was I? I shook my head to clear it, cringing at the shivers of pain it sent down my spine. _The TARDIS, right._ I forced myself to stand up, surveying the damage around me. Broken metal and glass was everywhere, with sparks flying out of pretty much everywhere. It was not looking good. As another spike of pain went through my spine, I decided the TARDIS could wait. If I wanted to be able to do anything, I needed to fix myself first.

I reached out to the ambient magic around me to heal my back, and I could feel the pain lessen as the surge of energy swirled through me. I breathed in deeply, my muscles relaxing as the pain subsided, and then it stopped. The connection was cut off, and while the majority of the pain had passed, the little lingering pain was still back there. _What on earth?_ I thought to myself. _That's not good._

After a bit of stumbling I managed to regain my footing, and made my way around through the areas that had the least sparks towards the TARDIS console. "Why do I go on these adventures?" I asked myself as I walked. "These things always go wrong."

 _You know exactly why you do it,_ I answered myself. _You love it. The excitement, the rush. The danger to your life only makes it more entertaining. You can't get enough of it. You never will._

I couldn't argue with myself there. While I would never say that I am happy when the world is in danger, I have to admit that there is a thrill unlike any other when you are saving the world. Facing impossible odds and unstoppable evil with everything against you, and coming out on top anyways, nothing compares to it. I've tried scary movies and haunted houses, roller coasters and other thrill rides, and they do little more than bore me. Because what artificial horror or costumed menace can compare to true evil, to creatures of darkness and madness older than civilization? What manufactured entertainment could compare to flying through the air, unharnessed and untethered, as you fly into battle, or watching reality itself warp around you as you leap from one universe to another?

I remembered then what I was doing and shook myself out of that line of thought. This was no time to let my thoughts wander off in strange paths. There was an immediate problem at hand that needed to be solved. I frantically searched the TARDIS console for something that was working, something that could hopefully be used to contact Clara and the Doctor. It was then that I saw the phone, sitting on the console, practically untouched by the destruction around it. _Could something so simple…_ I couldn't help but laugh at the situation as I reached for the phone.

. . . . .

"Where could he have gone?" Clara questioned as she stared down at the spot the TARDIS had stood.

"Well… down." Despite being completely baffled himself by the situation, he couldn't help but give the blithe response.

"Well, I know that!" she snapped at him. "I mean besides that! And how are we going to get him back?"

"I… I don't know. I don't know how." Now that was a rare sight. The Doctor had no idea what to do. "But!" He raised a finger, his eyes wide, "But!" His face was resolute. "We **will** get him back. We will save him." With that, he flicked his coat-tails behind him, spun around, and strode off.

"Do you have a plan?" Clara inquired as she scurried after him, confused.

"Not a clue!" he replied. "Let's go find one!"

Just then, they both stopped in surprise as a buzzing sound suddenly filled the air around them. They both stood completely still, not sure how to respond to this unexpected occurrence.

"What," the Doctor asked slowly, turning to Clara, "is that?"

"I… I think it's my phone." They both looked down, and, sure enough, the sound was emanating from Clara's pocket. Even then, it took a couple more moments, and a couple of glances at each other, before it fully registered.

"Well, are you going to answer it?"

"Oh, yeah." Clara fumbled in her pocket and pulled out the phone, pressing the screen to accept the call and quickly putting it on speaker. "Hello?" she asked into the air.

 _"_ _Hello ground control, this is Big Blue. It appears we've experienced a bit of technical difficulties down here."_ Both Clara and the Doctor couldn't hold back their grins as they heard John's jovial voice over the phone.

"John! You're alright!"

"Of course I'm alright! It is going to take a lot more than that to take care of me. Now, we need to come up with a plan to get me out of this mess. Well, get **us** out of this mess. I may be the one stuck down here, but if we don't get something figured out I'm not optimistic about any of our futures."

"Yes, I was just working on that, thank you," the Doctor quipped.

 _"_ _Something to take note of,"_ John added, his voice crackling over the phone _. "There is something very wrong here. There is far more to this world than meets the eye. Don't trust anything. As of now, the very ground you are standing on is your enemy."_

"Wow, way to be positive there John," Clara remarked.

 _"_ _Just want to make sure you know what you were dealing with here."_

"So what was that plan you were talking about?"

If Clara didn't know better, she would have sworn she could hear him smirking over the phone. _"Step one, don't die. So far, so good. Step two, we close the distance. I try to find a way up, you two try to find a way down."_

"If you leave the TARDIS, how will we be able to stay in contact with you?"

 _"_ _Trust me. I've got a way."_

Clara heaved a sigh and glanced at the Doctor, who only shrugged. "Alright John, we trust you. Try not to get eaten by anything, alright?"

This time she was certain she could hear his smirk. _"Right back at ya."_ With that the call ended, and Clara tucked the phone back into her pocket.

"Well, I guess we're off then," the Doctor stated, letting out a small sigh. "Ready to take on a planet?"

"Let's go find our boy."

. . . . .

I was totally lying through my teeth. I most definitely did **not** have a way to get back into contact with them. Oh, there were several ways I could think of, but they all required magic, and at that moment, it did not seem like that planet was going to let me touch any of it. I tried for several more minutes to tap into the strange magic of that world, with no success. Finally, I realized that if I wanted to get something done, I needed to move. So, I followed the plan, hoping against hope that I would be able to figure something out along the way. Oh yeah, and not die. I was also hoping that I wasn't going to die that day.

Outside the TARDIS I found myself in the middle of a dim tunnel, small glowing crystals in the walls around me providing what little light there was. The TARDIS appeared to have conveniently fallen in a spot where there was only earthen wall behind it and tunnel in front. If I wanted to go somewhere, there was only one place to go. So, forward I went. And, not to sound like a broken record, but I had a really bad feeling about this.

. . . . .

An undetermined stretch of time later, I appeared to have made no progress. The mysterious tunnel stretched on into infinity, the dim lighting making it impossible to know how much further it went. The only thing I could tell for certain was that it was slowly going down. The unrelenting silence made each footfall breath echo maddeningly through the tunnel, as if the planet was seeking to drive me mad. Every cell in my body was on edge, my muscles tensed and ready to move in a moment's notice: though whether to charge towards the threat or away from it, I was not yet sure. My life has always been a strange dichotomy, nearly unlimited magical power, yet powerless in my own home. But never had I felt more powerless than I did then, on a world literally made of magic, yet unable to access any of it.

I wondered if the Doctor and Clara were having any more luck than I was. I really hoped they were, and that nothing horrible had happened to them in my absence. This planet had, in essence, swallowed me whole. I didn't want to know what sort of plans it might have for my friends. Could a planet have plans? Normally I would have said no, but this was a magic planet after all. The rules of magic and the rules of science don't always match up, and in this case, a sentient world that eats time machines and young yet worn-out adventurers was not out of the question.

As I came back out of the depths of my thoughts, I noticed the light in the tunnel begin to change. The far end, which had been nothing but blackness until this point, began to look more grey than black. The closer I drew, the brighter the light grew. Whatever my destination was, it was drawing nearer. I whispered a prayer under my breath, hoping against hope that the Doctor and Clara were alright. I had really hoped that by the time I got to that point I would have thought of something, but I was still drawing a complete blank. Whatever plan I managed to come up with, it would have to be on the fly, because as the light grew into a true radiance, I knew that things were going to get very interesting.


End file.
